What I really like about Mike is that he's consistent about what he says, no matter who asks or what podcast he's on. Of course, he's a doctor and is reiterating medical facts, but still, there are professionals who bend the truth to tailor the experience to a certain audience.

Every time I see Dr Mike and MKBHD together I remember that they’re both 6 ft 3 😂.

Dr.Mike and MKBHD together can actually make a good pair of hosts for a tech related series where they can explore and review all the health tech. ❤❤❤

My cardiologist (High BP) checks my Apple Watch for historical information such as heart rate, etc. He also more importantly checks my Activity to see if I am moving/active etc. He has said the data is more of a "ok" check than a real data element for him and more of a motivation tool for me. He aligns with Dr. Mike on the watch usefulness but says it tells time well and other things like messages and alerts.

MKHB and Dr Mike point out the issue about 90 percent of the "tech youtubers influencers" is that majority just regurgitate stuff from the manufacturer. They don't know the internal workings nor experts in the field. They are just influencers and most are there for entertainment purposes only. Great podcast, especially on Mike chiming in on critical aspects of the medical field.

I will say I've dramatically increased my health, as my Fitbit made me more cognizant of being sedentary and the food I eat. My resting heartrate has gone from ~80 to ~63, and stayed there for the past few months.

I'm a medical student and longtime lurker in the 90%. I was super excited for y'all to talk about tech in medicine. I appreciated how the discussion had research in mind. I feel like providers need reminders on what most people know about medicine the longer we're inundated in the healthcare community too. • Products: I feel like one theme was the lack of a quick fix for a lifetime of habits. Tech provides tools to improve our health, but these tools are limited without more data from studies or individual motivation to continue with a product. We're allowed to enjoy these innovations as long as there are more positives than negatives. • AI: Bedside manner was nice to hear about in the episode, since each patient takes in a negative diagnosis differently than others. I don't know how I'd feel for myself or my family with a computer for a uniquely human interaction. Supportive relationships are important for patients to deal with the news and make decisions about management in line with their wishes. Patient communication and adherence might be difficult too. Providers are trained to ask the right questions, pull out the important answers, and do a physical exam before going to labs or images. Once with a diagnosis, then patients need to feel motivated to work with providers and agree to a plan based on recommendations. All of the medical advice in the world won't change a patient who isn't interested or equipped to change with the right resources. Additionally, I think a worrisome point would be the weaponization of health data with companies and corporations.

This is the podcast we needed but weren’t to sure what to do with because it was so informative.

I love that doctor Mike broke out the matte black scrubs for this. Dude always makes a point to dress for the occasion 💯

I have worked in IT healthcare for the past 25 years. Some interesting stuff was not brought up while Dr. Mike was in. One, be in control of you own health records. Bring notes on an iPad or your phone to each health care provider you see. I could get way more in depth. In America no one uses the same uniform EHR, which all use different versions of DB engines to store data. There is no HIE, health information exchange. There is massive amounts of excessive duplicate testing done by providers because they don’t know what’s been done by other providers. An example is running duplicate lab panels a week apart because the patient doesn’t understand nor is it really their job to. This is one of the multiple reasons why insurance costs so much and doesn’t pay provider practices any more. The Apple Health App, to its credit, does a good job of organizing all this data if you set it up correctly and if more patients and providers would use it. Or the government needs to come up with a federal HIE. There’s a lot more to get into analytically speaking but that’s a different show I’m sure.

As a wheelchair user, I love the fact that the Apple Watch offers wheelchair modus and takes into consideration that my movement is different but that I am still being active. In fact, I agree that the fall detection is ultimately the only useful feature. Some other data just gives me axiety.

As someone with type 1 diabetes, I do use tech daily. I have a CGM that automatically measures blood sugar every 5 minutes. And, I have extra software that communicates with both CGM and insulin pump to adjust insulin dosage as needed. The CGM alone already is a game changer for managing type 1 diabetes, but this combination is incredible, and I would never want to lose it. I mention this as an example for tech that indeed is incredibly useful and not just a gimmick.

My Apple Watch gave me insight in that my rest heart rate increased by 10 bpm (on average) since I had covid in October (immediately +10 right after). If I hadn't the watch I still would have been searching for the cause of my tiredness

One of the best podcast I've listen to in a while. Also great point and questions that can be turned into clips so that the information can be spread even faster!

the part about understanding our body first before relying on tech for diagnosis is pretty relatable.... I'm guilty of it. I also search a lot of medical stuff online and it tends to cause anxiety. I remember self diagnosing myself for kidney stone and it wont go away even after few weeks... I returned to my doctor twice. he said the results didn't find any stone or significant sign of infection. Then it dawned upon me I just really had a bad back muscle tear bc of work and posture lol

The ECG on my watch was great for showing me my PVCs when every time I went to the doctor it wouldn’t happen during my EKG. so being able to show them my ecg on my watch that tracked them, allowed me to determine it was PVCs quickly. So that was cool

I love when Mike and Marques get together! It’s always a good time/episode !

I love how he gave the trivia answers in the actual correct order lol. That alone would throw some off, thinking there’s no way they were already in the right order.

As a night owl, I very much appreciate that. Night owls have to deal with others making sound while we try to sleep yet we have to be quiet while others sleep. If we want to go to a government building then we have to be awake when we should be sleeping. If we want to go to school we have to function while we should be sleeping. Our job options are extremely limited if we don't work for ourselves.

I work an office job (now from my house, thank you pandemic) where I sit 40+ hours a week. Having a Fitbit and an old one, I think it’s three generations below the newest one, has allowed me to keep track of my heart rate and realize when I’m not getting enough exercise. I’ve kept it in the low 50s bpm pretty well, I’m amazed Marques’ is in the 40s, but he’s also way more active than me.

Real world example. I've been wearing smart watches to monitor heart rate for years. Big factor is cost. A new galaxy watch 5 is around $250. The type of heart rate monitor for constant monitoring he spoke of I wore for 14 weeks. It sticks to your chest and has a button you push every time you have a "cardiac event." The insurance bill was $1100, my out of pocket was $275. We can talk about the benefits of each in terms of health but a smartwatch is going to help in so many other ways.

To the editors: that punch zoom on "do that anyway" was awesome. Well done. I loved it.

This podcast is like the restaurant scene in the Social Network movie, Mike being justin timberlake(Speaking Sense), mkbhd being Jessie Eisenberg(loving whats justins talking), Andrew being andrew garfiled(I dont have to say it)

What a great episode with Dr. Mike. His thoughts and what he says are very clear and broken down with also being careful on stating that we are all our own person and their isn’t ONE rule for every human! Absolutely loved watching you guys today! Thank you!

“Social media detox” and here I am watching 80 mins of this podcast Lol

19:39 that music fade in was amazing

As a master student studying heart electrophysiology and AI, well this is entertaining and educating. Also I can validate some of the informations here XD. Glad to know that our narrow field of study got recognised

Just now seeing this. Always stoked to see Dr. Mike. This is such a great podcast.

1:40 A sign you have a good healthcare provider.

My girlfriend is a physician as well an she's pretty sceptical with all the health tech as well. Mike explained it really well tough, if there is no evidence that it helps, you really have to consider the side effects. Especially with the DNA testing where you might have a genetic predisposition for some kind of disease knowing it really doesn't help at all if there is nothing that helps. Great conversation!

This was really an enlightening episode... Thanks Dr Mike and Waveform team.

I love how nerdy this was. It felt warm and I felt at home.

I agree with sleep and stress tracking, as constantly checking these things can make you more anxious. I also advise against checking ECG daily on the watch as it can be anxiety inducing as well. However, I believe body composition and blood pressure can really help.

Mkbhd and Dr mike together is my fav collab 🙌

Fun and informative episode. More episodes like this where someone outside of tech industry sharing their thoughts

Catching up to this episode finally. I think a point that wasn't made is that sometimes you don't get to have as frequent as possible checkups to know if exercise or diet are having a good effect. It's true that if you just follow the recommended advice by a professional you will get the desired result without the help of a device such as a fitness tracker. However those devices can be used by non-fit individuals to achieve good results. All I'm saying is they can be used as standard weight scales. Just because you get on a scale regular doesn't mean people are not using them to monitor how they are doing and it keeps them motivated if they are getting good results. It doesn't have to be for the 1% of super athletes that are anyway going to have access to more robust tech that is dedicated to exactly what they need.

I am very glad doctor mike agreed to this interview. As a doctor myself he presented many of the opinions we have regarding tech in the health industry.

"It depends" is a frustrating answer but I appreciate how this was basically his answer to anything related to "what's good...?" No nonsense 'everyone should do this ONE thing to be healthy' At the same time I like his approach of 'if it makes you happy and doesn't hurt, why not'

My apple watched helped me get diagnosed with inappropriate sinus tacychardia and get meds so I’m forever thankful for it. I was tired all these years and not understanding why until I got my watch and my resting heart rate stayed between 96-110. I wasn’t aware at all before.

Always eargasmic when intelligent pple meet and converse 🥰🥰🥰 loved it

Dr Mike what a role model you are for the medical community! Sincerely, an anaesthesiologist.

Tracking the data on apple watch shows progress an is major motivation let alone it cheers you on to reach your goals an gives you encouragement, gnc amp protein shake an vitapack in morning has made big difference for me, I can feel the mental clarity and energy difference throughout day when not taking it in morning, another great podcast 👍👍

I need more fun, but in-depth Doctor Mike content, meme reviews are great, serious interviews are great, but when he gets to talk to people that he can really chill with, answer questions, and just have a long, interesting conversations about health in a real world setting? PEAK Doctor Mike content

55:30 just to throw my 2 cents in, i dont have blue light glasses but i use a program on my PC called Flux that basically acts as a blue light filter and i can say with 100% certainty that it helps with eye strain. I can visibly feel my eyes relax when i turn it on and i used to have pretty bad eye strain headaches but dont anymore. What Dr. Mike suggested (looking at something 20ft away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes) is helpful for sure, but I've never needed to do that after filtering out the blue light from my monitor and tinting everything more orange

i’ve been struggling with the heart stuff. super relatable. love this!

David’s sheer excitement at trivia was so wholesome 😂😊

Great to watch such intelligent, eloquent young men...gives me hope for the future.

This is such a great episode. Very informative and enlightening. It demystifies the so much nonsense that health product companies push to profit off people.

"no one is going that far to prove if anything works or not". This perfectly exemplifies the idea that no one is going to do an RCT of whether parachutes work.

@30:56 --it was Target that was culling the purchase history, and making recommendations in their weekly mailout flyers based on trends. A pretty famous case.

"I feel like we all nuke each other before that happens" 💀💀💀

Doctor Mike truly cares about the well being of his patients and money wise too.❤

I needed this podcast! I'm doing my master's in public policy, and this has convinced me to do my capstone (thesis) in AI and healthcare. I have a limited amount of time to complete it, so narrowing things down will be a challenge, but I'm excited about this topic :)

A day after I got the Covid vaccine, I was wearing a Fitbit, and, coupled with the knowledge that some people can have tachycardia after the vaccine, when I was lying down with 150+ BPM, needless to say this caused a panic attack, which saw me in the emergency room. Had I not had the FitBit on, this acute elevated heart rate (that was likely related to the response the vaccine but was nonetheless harmless) could have just passed by (as everything turned out to be fine) and it didn't feel like my heart was 150+. It was a very interesting biofeedback experience. Now I am mindful of how my Apple Watch can cause this biofeedback.

Love the pod with Dr. Mike. One question, is the white balance off for the cam on Marques and Andrew?

I just already know what he's gonna say: these devices do not actually acurately measure anything because they're not properly calibrated and they're too small and not powerful enough. But they're good for having a consistent number to look at, measuring movement, and telling time as if that matters. Did I get that right? Guess I'll find out 😅

this was a great podcast as a former EMT and a current tech guy this was super interesting

I took a genetic test from Genesight in order to determine my aptitude to different antidepressants. It was super useful and my psych and I use it as a guide for different treatments!

I've been watching you guys for a while and i really love your podcast, i think it's the only podcast that i actually listen to consistently, but i'm writing this comment to ask you for one thing: could you guys try and not talk over eachother😅 this happens often and i have to keep rewinding the podcats to figure out what each person said.

To add to the conversation on health anxiety caused by too much information: I know Ozempic has been in the news for non-diabetics using diabetic supplies, but there’s also an industry using other diabetic supplies in the realm of medical technology - Continuous Glucose Monitors. There’s various services that will write a prescription to use these as “metabolic monitors” and spend quite a bit of effort to shame people who don’t follow their program using their weird arbitrary limits. One such service calls diabetes “chronic lifestyle disease” when even T2D is heavily influenced by genetics, and all the other types (there’s more than 2) have various other causes. Forums for support over these devices get visits from non-diabetics fairly frequently asking about numbers and whatnot and the diabetics there are like “what are you even worrying about? you look healthy” and some will clap back with “what does your doctor who prescribed you this device requiring a prescription say about your data when they interpret it?” These devices are a massive game changer for diabetes management, including for T2D, where we can make far better decisions without the anxiety of frequently poking our fingers. But there’s non-diabetic people who think they also need this, and when it’s pointed out to them it’s not really useful to them, they accuse diabetics of gatekeeping this technology. It’s a similar argument on ozempic/mounjaro. As far as wearable non-medical device tech, like smartwatches and phones: As you might guess, I’m diabetic, and I use a CGM. I’m also a techie and have a pretty elaborate setup to get my blood glucose values available on my Garmin watch. I don’t care too much about all the stuff that Garmin Connect can track, but it has been a bit of a hub for tracking actual legit health data I share with my doctor (I have their blood pressure monitor as well, I track weight and other things). But having my blood glucose glancable on my wrist is super helpful. Failing having it on my wrist, it’s also on my phone. My CGM sends its data to my phone via bluetooth, so my phone becomes my glucometer. With my setup, it reports to apple health, my watch, etc. While I don’t trust Garmin’s calculations on sleep tracking and health, body battery, etc, and I mostly don’t pay attention to it, these smart devices can enable ways to access data from actual medical devices. Some diabetics use insulin pumps and this can also go through their phone, where the user can see how it’s performing, input a need for extra insulin, have the pump talk to a CGM to balance things out, etc. But, of course, this all involves actual medical devices, with FDA approval. I guess the point I want to note is we have our medical technology talking to our personal devices, now, and that’s pretty cool, and should be further developed. I’m not sure what other tech could benefit from this blending in a safe way (maybe hearing aids?) but I’m sure there’s a lot more that could be developed as real medical devices that blend with our personal devices.

My favorite content creators in one podcast! Love it

David Sinclair and Matthew Walker have great research based books on living better (not necessarily longer) and sleep science respectively. Why We Sleep is a phenomenal book and I'm glad Dr. Mike name dropped it because it is such a valuable book.

i went to a phycologist that was with a non profit here in dallas texas Metrocare, and i was able to get mental health, i even did my own research and showed the doctor and she asked, how common and such and all my research helped, also help me recall how i felt and such. for me it was Depression, Anxiety, ADHD and slight autistic.

Love Dr Mike. He sticks to his professional knowledge, and doesn't align with products. Just provides good common sense.

This interview was very eye opening, Doctor Mike is a real one

This discussion really talked me out of buying an Apple Watch, which I appreciate. If I ever decide to buy it, I’ll consider ignoring the health data and sticking to fitness tracking and notifications. But I can easily see myself being psyched out by seeing I didn’t get a lot of sleep on my Apple Watch, so it’s better I don’t make it easy for that to happen

According to my cardiologist, the blood o2 and ecg are very helpful and accurate

My specialist advised a watch to monitor an issue. I find it hard to use because if feeling unwell, I do feel well enough to find the function and apply it. But it has been a marvelous asset to monitoring activity and monitoring sleep.

I think this was one of the best episodes till now. Thanks ❤

This was such an amazing show. I like the level of not knowing how much the other people in their field know. On the Mike trivia with random medical device trivia and MKBHD did you make the typing app.

Just watched the Vision pro unboxing, need to see the headsets and the vision pro together.

One really underrated health Feature of the Apple Watch in my opinion is the option to wake you up with only the “taptic engine”. I sleep very deep and do not wake up unless there is a really loud noise. I always hated going to bed knowing next thing tomorrow morning will be a loud sound. The Apple Watch just wakes me up with light tabs and I love it.

I spent all of my clinical skills class in the first year of med school learning about how to approach and interview patients. Some people might think some of the things to be too 'political' (e.g. asking for pronouns, preferred but not legal names, etc.) but these are questions that can be dropped if not applicable, rather than not being asked to begin with - and for a not insignificant amount of people, these things make a difference to make patients trust us. The questions of "what do you think is going on?" and "how has this affected you?" have been drilled into us as part of our grading rubric for all of our standardized patient interactions in an office clinic setting. In the simulated emergency setting, all bets are off 😂

Dr Mike believes patients are like kids and the doctor is the great magician knowing only the truth about your body. Using my smart watches to live much healthier then before. I appreciate the doctor which takes the smartwatch data as a hint.

As someone in the health tech field this was frustrating to watch. I wish the waveform folks had more experience to push back on some of Dr. Mikes thoughts. His whole perspective comes from the old "tried and true" way that the industry works and is dismissive of giving patients more control over their bodies. The sad truth is, most doctors don't want people getting in their way; by giving patients power, they need to slow down and are questioned. The problem was, is and will continue to be education on the data and the medical industry looking at healthcare as a partnership. Medical field would rather control the data discussion. Health tech wants to surface that data. Need to meet in the middle to find that happy medium, now that people know they have a say.

There are actually quite a few features that are genuinely helpful. It would be worth going through an itemized list with real scenarios and bring a skeptical eye. Everyone is also different. One persons motivation is another person’s entertainment. That seemed true more than a few times during this video.

I love that one of the trivia questions was about the invention of optical lasers because my father, who went to the same Stevens University as MKBHD, is one of the inventors of LASIK eye laser technology

LESGOOOO best part of my Friday every time love you guys

Good dr. Mike for openings the eyes of people. ❤

It's about time we talk more about healthcare and tech. This was very interesting. Thank you

This was my first time seeing your podcast obviously cos of Dr Mike but I really enjoyed that. 😀

Good pushback from Marques on the AI. If the algorithms are able to detect small things we can't detect yet, it's probably not a big of a deal as Dr Mike suggested, yet we could potentially start to see trends very early on, and that would mean we can start treating the diseases at its very early stage, preventing a its latter-stages, sometimes irreversible, effects. For anybody interested in the topic, there is a very good NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine) podcast series (NEJM AI Grand Rounds) available online, where both clinicians and technologists debate the use of AI in current medical practice, and in the nearest future.

I use my smartwatch for a baseline. I track steps and exercise. I find it encouraging and motivating.

Docs are right when they say get to know your own body. You're the best doctor at diagnosing what might be wrong with yourself. I use heart rate monitors for health/fitness, but more to target specific fitness levels depending on the day. I was surprised to find out none of the new high tech watches can do this. I use a Polar with the chest strap. Also, as information for when to restart my current workout at the same starting heart rate, for consistency sake to guage performance. This one can be done with a cheap Fitbit, which I also use.

I work with an Electrophysiologist and advise pts to use an apple watch for rhythm tracking. We don't do it a bunch but it has been useful in some cases

Respect to Marcus for pushing back wrt to early detection and prompting a visit to the doctor.

Great episode! Doctor Mike simplifies everything we tend to make complicated. We want a black and white certainty with everything, but as Doctor Mike pointed out numerous times, it varies person to person. Really enjoyed this!

I would love to see the other Dr. Mike on the pod! Dr. Mike Israetel of renaissance periodization just released a new training app and it has some pretty amazing tech in it!

This is such a good conversation it's almost scary. Wow. Just raise the bar, guys, why doncha... oh, and THANK YOU!! PS Re the trivia - I knew that records was the latest because my former spouse was working at a company that was trying to get them fully functional in the 90s. There were a lot of variables, including issues of confidentiality and it was a more complicated problem to solve than most people realized.

Great show. Have been wondering how serious to take the HRV and VO2max estimates on Apple Watch .

Dr. Mike and Marques may want to know the ECG was GREAT for me. Every now and then I felt a skipped heartbeat and my heart would beat funny. I went to my doctor and because I would take the ECG at that time, he was able to look at the EXTENDED reading and give me an opinion on it. He looked at the extended report and set my mind at ease. When I experienced this, I always worried, but the doctor told me that this was just the chambers of my heart getting out of sync, but that it did NOT look out of the ordinary. Similarly, for sleep issues when I stop breathing or have issues, the blood oxygen sensor helps me know if I am having ongoing issues (including deep sleep metrics). Don’t overplay the “skepticism” in trying to gain a healthy balance. It’s interesting what’s missing here. I’m not atypical.

Loved this show, big Dr Mike fan

Super surprised about the med devices, I would have thought none would have patches. I still remember the industry using 80286 boards for image processing of x-ray scanners in the pentium days as every single change needs full requalification of the device which is expensive. This is why specs are bound and stick for decades

I feel like for the heart monitering thing on the applewatch should have some sort of calibration function. Obviously im not a medical professional so maybe i just dont know. But i feel like there is some variation between person to person on what their heart rate should be depending on whether theyre being active at that time or stationary. And im wondering whether or not calibrating for those scenarios could possibly make it less likely to flag something as abnormal when its actually normal or at least not problematic

The only metrics I'm concerned about, is resting heart rate changes over time. I like to know, that my training is in fact improving my general fitness - and adjust accordingly if not.

Honestly, a good social media detox is no social media at all. Really has changed my life and what I do with my time. Highly suggest everyone tries it. There's enough garbage going on in the world, no need to see it in front of our faces everyday. But that is just my own personal opinion.

Love how this video came just at the right time as I bought a new Fitbit

Bring more guests to the podcast, I really enjoyed this one

Why does David's hair look like he just came back from being beat up 😂😂

So I completely understand the view point on the health anxiety on the apple watch but I'd like to bring up a different perspective. For ten years I've been going to doctors trying to figure out why I was getting super sick in the shower. At the time I thought it was only the shower, and that other things I was feeling such as being out of breath, tired, and heart palpations was simply because I was out of shape because I also thought that, that was just how everyone else lived and they just powered through it. And for those Ten years, I had doctors tell me I would pass out because of an ear infection, I just needed to drink more water, I needed to lose weight, it was just anxiety and my favorite one "Some young girls your age just have that issue, you'll grow out of it". (I have not). No one seemed to take me seriously and at some point I just gave up trying. My doctors didn't know what to look for because I didn't know the words for anything that was happening, I didn't know anything was related things that turned out to be high heartrate I thought was just random panic attacks. And since my heartrate is only elevated when I'm standing and I don't have high blood pressure, they couldn't see anything wrong with me and no doctor is going to send a 16 -> 23 year old girl for multiple tests when nothing seems wrong. Then Last year, I saw a video on tiktok of all places about a girl who had finally found answers to a health concern she had been trying to figure out for years. She explained her symptoms and I swear time felt like it stopped, suddenly everything in my life made sense. The dizziness, the fainting, the fatigue, the brain fog, even down to the constant craving for salt. I knew my doctor wouldn't listen to me, she had a very bad habit of telling me to drink more water and that would fix all my problems. So I bought an apple watch and suddenly I had data, something to show my doctor to finally take me seriously. And when she saw my resting heartrate at 85bpm would jump to 145 to sometimes 170 when all I was doing was walking around my house her attitude went from "There's nothing wrong" to "Woah, no that's not right" So no while I don't think apple watches are good for users who are just getting it to "see if I might have an issue", I do think it's an amazing tool for people who have been fighitng to prove their health concerns are real. Even if the doctor doesn't trust the watch, it still makes them pause for a second to think about a second look. While my illness isn't technically life treatening, I'd still say the apple watch was one of the things that probably saved my life. I didn't want to live in a body that couldn't even put away the dishes, I'd go to do something that I used to love doing and find that I was struggling, now I'm on meds and I finally feel like I have some of my life back. I don't know if any of this matters to anyone but me, but it's an important perspective to have.